Help dating an early Laura Ashley dress?

P

petticoat

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Hello! This is my first time posting here so I hope it works ok! :-)

I recently bought an early Laura Ashley dress - it has the early 'Made in Wales' label and the fabric is a fairly sturdy cotton, pale mauve, with a one-colour block print of stylised flowers and little squares in a deep purple. The design of the dress is (as far as I can tell!) quite unusual; at least, I've not seen anything similar in my extensive internet searching. It has a high collar trimmed with white circle trim (not lace), bell sleeves with shirring and the waist area is shirred all the way around. It's ankle/floor length on me (I'm 5' 6").

I'm having trouble uploading a picture but you can see the dress here (I hope it's ok to link to etsy given that it's a sold item!!).

Has anybody come across a similar dress, and are you able to narrow its date down further than 'late 60s/early 70s'? There's a forum post here which, if you scroll down about halfway, shows an image of some Ashley fabrics - the turquoise/green one on the left is the same design as my dress but a different colourway. That post suggests it's 60s. But this page (about a quarter of the way down) shows a dress made from the turquoise/green fabric and suggests it's late 70s!

I guess I'm just intrigued because I've not managed to find another example of this particular dress (although that may well be through lack of experience!). There are some early Ashley designs that seem to pop up fairly regularly, but this is a new one on me.

Any info is very much appreciated, thank you very much in advance! :-)
 
From the cut, I would say the dress is 70s - I would not be able to give you a more exact date though.

Jannemieke
 
Laura Ashley are essentially a textile company and the designs were used over a manner of years. These early dresses with the Victorian/Edwardian/little house of the prairie influences are what I consider their strong point and key designs.

I've had several of these dresses and most date from '66 to about '77 but they're hard to pin down more than that unless you have clues with the construction, which generally there aren't. I have one in the shop now I'll check it out when I get there, to see what I've put on it but like yours, it has the high neck and puffed sleeves. I think it's late '60s but will confirm. Sizes changed in Australia in about 1967 so size labels can sometimes help us with dating, as the old sizes were used for a little while and then there's a transition period where garments had labels for both size systems.

If you haven't read it yet, you might like to check out the Label resource.

Nicole
 
This label is the earliest and I don't think I'd date it to any later than very early 70s. I'd probably err towards late 60s.

Being in the UK I've seen a good few Laura Ashleys. Most of the obviously 70s dresses have the later Carno or floral labels. Totally agree with Nicole - your dress represents a (very early) high point for the company.

Sarah
 
Thank you very much everyone for your replies! :-) I'm hopefully going to wear this dress on Monday for a special occasion and now I will know what to say if anyone asks me about it. ^_^
 
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